I feel a bit guilty (sometimes) about how long it can take to write a review once an album has arrived. Doug McCurry’s mini album “Seven Songs About Leaving” had been gathering dust for a while but its time had now come.
Open up the card sleeve of the CD and I see the words that I, as a reviewer, most dread – “All songs written, performed, recorded & produced by Doug McCurry”. Another one man and one laptop offering perhaps? It certainly sounds like that anyway with a clumsy production killing any chance that “Mama Said” and “21st Century Car” might have had. Things do improve notably on the songs that don’t suffer from unfortunate sonic tinkering such as the reflective, country rock flavoured “October Rain” but they are clearly isolated incidents.
All in all, “Seven Songs About Leaving” is a perfect example of the kind of album you get when a musician decides that he can do everything himself when he actually can’t.